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ELKINS -- The City of Elkins has announced that "recent high-volume rain events" have emphasized the need for better stormwater management within the city.
Operations Manager Michael Kesecker has spoken at recent Elkins City Council meetings about talking with residents who have stormwater concerns, and now the city has issued a statement on the issue.
"Elkins residents and property owners have been impacted by stormwater issues for some time, but these issues are becoming more acute as each new year seems to bring more and more sudden and intense downpours," a City of Elkins press release states. "City officials are actively exploring the best options for addressing these issues."
The city sees "only two paths" to improve the stormwater situation, the release states.
"Option 1 would be the creation of a stormwater utility," according to the release. "Like water and sewer utilities, however, a stormwater utility would have to charge rates, meaning Elkins utility customers would see yet another charge on their monthly bills."
The most recent City of Elkins utility bills, mailed out Monday, included for the first time a 3% water rate increase and a 17.5% sewer rate hike.
The other option, the city believes, would be to create a Stormwater Department.
"Such a department would probably consist of just two to three employees, with additional personnel pulled in temporarily from other departments as needed," the release states. "Although a Stormwater Department in the General Fund would not result in an extra charge on utility bills, it would compete with the many other services paid for within the General Fund: police, paving, code enforcement, and so on."
City officials are focusing on the second option "to avoid the need for an additional utility charge," according to the release.
"The final shape of this plan is not yet clear, but it does seem likely that, with some reorganization and reallocation of funds, it may be possible to staff and equip a Stormwater Department without excessive impact on other city services and activities. Such a department would at least enable the city to respond to acute flooding issues and needed repairs with a great deal more agility than is currently possible."
The city is in the process of a multiphase project to separate stormwater from sewer lines. The release states that "the Elkins sewer/stormwater separation process won't be complete for the better part of a decade and will also cost many millions of dollars, but at least this effort has a clear source of funding, that is, the rates paid by sewer customers."
The city release points out that "because of laws requiring the strict segregation of the rates paid by utility customers, the city's wastewater (sewer) system is actually not allowed to undertake major stormwater infrastructure construction. State law does allow our wastewater utility to fund the separation of stormwater and sewer lines. State law does not allow our wastewater utility to install new storm drains, repair catch basins, install new stormwater lines outside of separation projects, fund engineering projects to model stormwater management needs citywide, and so on."